Israeli-Saudi Peace Deal, With Steven A. Cook

The President’s Inbox

Council on Foreign Relations

Politics, News:politics, News

4.5 • 698 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Steven A. Cook, the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at CFR, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the ongoing negotiations to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Mentioned on the Podcast Steven A. Cook, “How Sisi Ruined Egypt,” Foreign Policy Steven A. Cook and Martin Indyk, The Case for a New U.S.-Saudi Strategic Compact Andrew Exum, “The Israeli Saudi Deal Had Better Be a Good One,” The Atlantic Thomas Friedman, “Biden Is Weighing a Big Middle East Deal,” New York Times For an episode transcript and show notes, visit us at: https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/israeli-saudi-peace-deal-steven-cook

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.
0:10.1	I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
0:14.4	This week's topic is an Israeli-Saudi peace deal.
0:23.6	With me to discuss ongoing negotiations to craft a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is
0:30.8	Stephen Cook.
0:32.2	Stephen is the E&I Enrico Matai Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies here at the Council on Foreign
0:39.0	Relations. He has written extensively on the Middle East and has a column at foreign policy.com.
0:45.9	He is the author of the Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, The Case for a New U.S.
0:51.7	Saudi Strategic Compact. Stephen, it is a pleasure to have you back on the president's inbox.
0:57.6	Thanks for having me back, Jim.
0:59.5	Stephen, we're going to eventually get into the nuts and bolts of the ongoing negotiation.
1:04.6	But I'd like to begin with the so what question.
1:07.6	Assume for a moment that Saudi Arabia agrees to formally recognize Israel and the two
1:13.3	countries established diplomatic relations. How significant would that development be?
1:20.0	Well, I think it would be quite significant. From the perspective of U.S. policy, it's long been
1:26.4	an American interest to help ensure Israeli security.
1:31.2	And so if the United States can play a role in forging a normalization agreement or a peace
1:36.4	agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, it would go a long way to furthering that goal.
1:43.2	And given Saudi Arabia's role, not just in the Arab world, but in the Muslim world,
1:47.9	it would change the geopolitics of the Middle East and the broader relationship between Israel and the
1:54.8	Muslim world for the better. That's not to say that this would be accepted by everybody, but given
1:59.6	the role that Saudi Arabia has played
	...

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